Nanny Share Pay and OT
Hi all,
Looking into starting with a nanny or nanny share. We work 8.5 hour days (8-4:30) with a 1-1.5hr commute, so will need childcare for ~11 hours a day. We are planning to offer 12 hours of pay to cover a missed lunch. I see varying resources that cite OT to be paid at >40hrs/wk +/- 8hrs/day. Other families must also work 8 hour shifts and need childcare coverage for >8hrs/day. We would like to contract for 3x12hr days (36hrs), with OT at >40hrs/wk or more than any agreed upon length per day (ie if there is an emergency or issue getting home on time).
Also, many of the resources for fair hourly rate are outdated. We are planning to pay $15 each family, so $30/hr total when shared. The other family does not need 11 hour days, so our family was going to pay $25/hr for the hour or so on each end of the day that the nanny is alone with our kid. We are also planning to offer 2wks paid PTO and essentially unlimited unpaid sick/vacation. Kids are 6mo.
Is this too complicated? Does it seem fair?
Thanks, BPN.
Parent Replies
Not too detailed. Writing everything down so no one is surprised is essential to avoiding misunderstandings and hurt feelings.
I'd also add language around sick days, what it will look like to leave the share should it be necessary, and potentially understandings about vaccine expectations with the other family, etc.
In this new world, you may also want to consider adding language around smoke days and, and precautions/expectations around covid/other illnesses.
In California, I’m pretty sure you have to pay OT for any hours over 8 in one day. That’s a stricter rule than paying OT for any hours over 40 in one week.
I think the pay rate and terms you’re proposing sound fair. We paid overtime and PTO for our nanny. Too many families don’t pay overtime and there’s a term for that: wage theft. It’s immoral and illegal.
California law requires that OT be paid once you hit eight hours in a given day (vs. federal law, which only requires it over 40 hours per week) so if you have 12 hours days, four of the hours must be at the OT rate. (If you go beyond the 12 hours, you are required to do 2x the regular rate, so be aware of that for sure.) We had a similar situation with our share, and the way we structured it was that there was a one-child and two-child rate. Each day would have specific one-child and two-child hours (since one family used seven hours and the other nine hours, with a one-child hour on either end). So the first hour was one-child, hours 2-8 were two-child, and the ninth hour was one-child rate x 1.5. It was complicated on paper but worked out fine in real life. If, say, both families use 8 hours but they are offset by an hour (which we had with our second child at one point), you do need to pay OT as soon as the nanny's workday hits 8 hours, regardless of which child she's caring for. In a situation like that, you would want each family pay half of the total cost (regardless of whether they were the 8-4 or 9-5 family).
This seems fair to me. My kid is almost 2yo, and when he was a ~4mo we started a share. We had a detailed contract that was good to have - I think the only times we went back to reference it were to confirm holidays and to check if we'd put anything in there about yearend bonus (we hadn't). There was lots of fluff language about development and stuff that we I don't think we needed. If the nanny ends up totally mismatched for the environment you want your kid to be raised in (i.e. development, manners, discipline etc.) you change nannies.
RE: the pay structure, our nanny asked that we pay her $28h, at least 40h per week. That meant that if we needed <40h, we'd split up to the 40h mark. If one family needed the nanny for >40h, then they would pay the full $28h of those additional hours. Our nanny share was actually split between 3 families - 1 host kiddo full time, and 2 non-host kiddos half time each. I was surprised at the amount of time we spent emailing about the upcoming week's schedule and confirming $ amounts, but the other parents (my husband included) said they expected it.
Feel free to message me over BPN if you want me to send you our google doc hours & dollars tracking spreadsheet.